Competition No 3797
Set by George Cowley, 1 September
Andrew Hussey in the NS opined that "the language of psychoanalysis is overused in daily life". We asked for examples.
Report by Ms de Meaner
A lacklustre sack of entries on the whole, and a slap on the wrist for most of you. The winners can have £15, except for David Silverman, who can have £20 and the Tesco vouchers. It's good to laugh.
- Thanks for a wonderful evening. Would you . . . er . . . like to come in for a coffee?
- Hmm, I see . . .
- Sorry?
- Oh . . . nothing, it's just that you seem to have an overwhelming urge to kill your father and I wondered if you felt guilty about this and therefore have a repressed death wish but are somehow ambivalent so your ego is defensively converting this into a need to drink a lot of coffee in a subconscious attempt to stay alive . . . And yes, and I take it black with one sugar, please . . .
- Black? No milk? You don't think you might be projecting and displacing your overwhelming feelings of rage and frustration at the bad breast and splitting . . .
- So . . . erm . . . Do you think you fancy . . .
- Do I fancy what?
- Applying to do psychology at university? It's well easy, isn't it?
David Silverman
- Darling, I have a delusional sensation that we are under-compensating for one another's passion.
- Do you mean that we are collectively unconscious?
- More that we are free-associating, my sweet.
- And our introjection? Perhaps we should take up the paranoid schizoid position . . . mmm . . .
- The psychopathology of everyday blokes - you give me such positive reinforcement! Would it be deterministic to have another drink?
- Is the Martini still operant?
- If not, we could re-enact it.
- By Krafft-Ebing, perhaps! I've been wondering if your inner self was symbolically linked to the modal expressivism . . .
- Modal or nodal?
- Modal. By subjecting ourselves to sensory, instinctual or totemic experience, we can live happily ever after.
- And will you always repress my infantile longings?
- Symbolically. But ours is a trauma in which the phenomenon is the significance, and vice versa.
- You make me feel so . . .
- Sssh. You'll give me a complex.
Bill Greenwell
- Oh, darling! When we're like this I feel my superego giving way . . .
- Does that mean . . . ?
- We mustn't! I think we should sublimate our desires, don't you?
- Desires! I want to . . .
- You know, darling, a love object is essential for a well-balanced psychic economy. Without one, one becomes narcissistically fixated. It's something to hold on to in a sea of free-floating anxiety.
- Just let me hold on to . . .
- Darling! Don't! We're not at the stage where we're ready to go beyond the self-regarding ego to find satisfaction in the external world.
- Satisfaction! I'll show you what satisfaction . . .
- It's hard to be sure of what we want, isn't it? To forsake the certainties of the self for the uncertainties of a libidinous encounter, or . . .
- Want? All I want's a shag, for Christ's sake!
- Darling!
- Sorry. I mean . . . I wish to move from the oral and anal stages to full emotional maturity.
- Well, in that case, you can . . . you know . . .
- Yahoo! . . .
Michael Cregan
- Oh John, you're so good and true and handsome.
- Mmm . . .
- You're my life! You're everything to me, John!
- Mmm . . .
- You're my shining sun! You're my world!
- Mmm . . .
- There's only one thing.
- Ye-es? Take your time. Relax. Free-associate.
- Well, you're just a little self-satisfied.
- When did you first become aware of these feelings?
- Just now, actually. When all you could say was "Mmm" . . .
- Your feelings of anger are completely natural in a healthy woman of your age.
- Oh no, they're more vicious and vile than you can ever know.
- We can work together to deal with these feelings of low self-esteem.
- Oh, I feel fine about myself. It's you I hate. I'm leaving you. Goodbye, John.
Josh Ekroy
No 3800 Set by Brendan O'Byrne
We'd like you to take a well-known quotation or saying ("You can't make an omelette without breaking eggs"; "the rule is jam tomorrow . . . but never jam today", or a better one of your choice) and write a short extract to show what led up to its being said/written/thought.
Max 200 words by 3 October. E-mail: comp@newstatesman.co.uk
